Re: William James

Glenn Morton (grmorton@mail.isource.net)
Tue, 02 Sep 1997 18:09:27 -0500

At 08:40 AM 9/2/97 -0400, Daniel Criswell wrote:

>I believe our life experiences with God carry a tremendous amount of
>weight as we express our relationship with God.
>
>However, logical arguments which can be backed up by the Word of God must
>carry the critical weight. We must never place Scripture in a
>subordinate role under our emotions or feelings.
>
>You cannot trust your feelings. You can trust the Word of God.
>
>If experience clashes with the logical arguments from scripture, I'm
>trusting in the word.

I would like to make a comment. In point of fact in the last sentence one is
not really trusting the Word, but is trusting one's interpretation of the
Word. We must not forget that there are many aspects to any communication.

There is the message that God intended.
There is the message that the writer understood.
There is the message that the writer delivered.
There is the message that we understand.

Even assuming that God's inspiration was able to take care of the first 3, I
find little assurance that we always understand as well as God would want us
to. Thus, when we say that we are trusting the Word, we are trusting our
understanding (or interpretation) of the word. there is a big difference
between the two.

The reason I mention this is that in lots of debate in the area of
creation/evolution creationists claim to be trusting the Word, but in fact,
they are trusting a particular interpretation of the Word.

glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm